While the energy bill continues to ping pong between the House of Representatives and the Senate, one Company announced its bet that at least one proposition of the bill (the increase in ethanol production and use) will be stripped from the legislation in order to gain bipartisan support.

Pacific Ethanol Incorporated (PEIX) announced on Monday that the Company was suspending construction of its Imperial Valley Project in Calipatria, California until the market conditions improved. The market conditions causing the suspension were not mentioned, and whether the conditions included the federal legislation or not was also unclear.

What is known is that Pacific Ethanol’s founder, Bill Jones, had been at odds with the California state government over waste treatment financing for the plants in Stockton and the Imperial Valley. The waste treatment designation, which is defined as the transformation of useless and unwanted material into something of use, was used by the Company in Oregon to secure tax breaks of $6 million from the state for construction of a 40 million gallon per year facility. The waste they transformed was the corn byproduct in ethanol production and the dehydration of it for sale to ranchers and dairy farmers as corn feed.

PEIX was attempting to garner this waste treatment designation in California which was noted as some $14 million in tax breaks from the state. Recently, the California Debt Limitation Committee recommended against funding the Company through reduced borrowing costs.

But Jones, who was the former Secretary of State for California, has strong political ties and has utilized them for the advocacy of ethanol use in the state. Jones was instrumental in the state upping the percentage of ethanol use from 6% to 10% to meet air quality guidelines even though the increased use of ethanol was noted as actually resulting in higher levels of smog-producing nitrogen oxide. Later, it was found that by reducing levels of sulfur during the refining process, the 10% blend burned as clean as gasoline did with the now banned MTBE additive.

PEIX won that bout, and also benefited from the state of Oregon implementing their own 10% mandate. Last week it was announced that PEIX also received the acceptance of a special committee which included Governor Schwarzenegger, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, and state Controller John Chiang which effectively overrides the California Debt Limitation Committee’s recommendation.

But now the tax breaks and reduced financing costs could be in limbo now that the Company suspended the construction of the Imperial Valley Project which along with the Stockton plant were granted the waste treatment designation. Even though ethanol prices have dropped with the increased production of the substance throughout the nation, the tax break should have offset some of that decline in revenue along with California’s subsidy of 51c per gallon. In any event, with PEIX suspending its construction and expansion, the ethanol market may not be as conducive to profits as it once was which is in stark contrast to how stocks of other ethanol names have reacted over the past few weeks. With that in mind, investors would be wise to watch.

Knobias has established itself in the industry as a unique and competent company which has invented new ways to consolidate, organize and analyze financial information.

The financial IT company remains on the cutting edge by offering solutions to maximize profitability, regardless of investment strategy. Knobias produces relevant, timely, and actionable stock market content with faithfulness that visitors can depend on.

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Now that the restructuring of financial information services company Knobias (OTCBB: KNBS) has been completed, many people are wondering what the restructuring will mean to the company. When the company’s principal creditors – chief among them CAMOFI, otherwise known as Centrecourt Asset Management – announced that it would begin examining the ailing company about how best to restructure it, there was much concern about what would happen to Knobias.According to Smithline founder and influential micro-cap pioneer Robert Smithline, who had time for a brief interview with Market News First, CAMOFI plans on “injecting new capital, new management, a new board and taking it to the next level.”

While Smithline only had a brief comment for Market News First on the restructuring of Knobias, CAMOFI Managing Director Carl Kleidman gave Market News First a better explanation of what was happening at Knobias, and how the company was dealing with it.

“The company’s known for months that the restructuring is taking place,” Kleidman said in an exclusive interview. “It’s not like this is new – they ran out of cash at the beginning of the year, and … all the debt-holders and preferred stockholders got together to figure out a restructuring plan that made sense for the company, which the company has been intimately involved with. So they’ve known for the last several months that this was in the works, and they’re certainly involved with it. To be honest, it’s the last couple of months where the [disturbance] has been [the worst] because people weren’t sure if it was happening, or exactly when it was going to close, and there’s more lethargy when that is trying to be put together. I think now things will start moving forward with the company.

“I can’t talk about the full management until the new [members] get in there, but the CEO has resigned and a new CEO has been appointed,” Kleidman continued. “As for any other changes, they will play out over time. There’s nothing else planned for the moment.”

For those not in the know, Knobias is a financial information services company with a long history of providing top-quality services to its customers – and a more recent history of financial insolvency and plunging stock prices. In 2005, the company’s stock showed up on the OTC Bulletin Board and started spiraling down the drain, dropping from $3 a share to less than 10 cents a share in the span of a year. Since then, rumors of gross corporate and financial mismanagement have dogged the company, leaving potential investors cold to Knobias’ offerings and current investors high and dry.

Kleidman hopes that this restructuring can help change that. By injecting some new capital and bringing in new management, CAMOFI intends to “make Knobias bigger and better than what it was,” according to Kleidman.

“There will be a new CEO, there will be some new board members … everybody’s looking to move the company forward,” Kleidman said. “We intend to improve the content, expand the content, and, most importantly, get back out there and try to increase the footprint of the product in the financial community.”

Some of these changes go as far as affecting the Knobias stock. According to a press release sent out yesterday, CAMOFI owns approximately 33 percent of Knobias’ outstanding capital stock, while the holders of the new Series B Preferred Stock own approximately 50 percent, while the holders of the company’s common stock own approximately 7.3 percent. By doing this, CAMOFI can help Knobias during this difficult time without infringing on the services Knobias provides.

“It’s not a purchase, nobody’s buying it out,” Kleidman explained. “It’s just a restructuring, which means the existing debt and equity holders agree to certain restricting of their current holdings, namely the debt was converted into equity, and we’ve made a new investment to the company which has bought us that 33 percent stake.

“But we didn’t buy the company, we don’t control the company, we don’t operate the company – from this point forward, there’s a new board being put in place, which is full of independent board members who have no affiliation with us, and a new CEO is being put in place who, again, has no affiliation with us. This is not like somebody bought it – CAMOFI did not buy Knobias. Knobias is still an independent public company, and is going to be managed by an independent board of directors and a new management team.”

Today, there are many places to find news. While that may sound great, once anything reaches “information overload”, quality will be diminished and accuracy will be reduced.

Knobias has invented new ways to over-coming the problem by consolidating, organizing and analyzing financial information in order to ensure accuracy. They remain on the cutting edge, offering investors everything from fundamental due diligence to real-time news and events.

Knobias’ technology solutions successfully serve every market participant from issuer to investor, whether the time horizon is 10 minutes or 10 years.

Knobias is a leading financial IT company, a unique content company, a public small-cap company and it remains true to its historical foundation.

As a financial IT company, Knobias invents new ways to consolidate, organize and analyze financial information. From fundamental due diligence to real-time news and events, Knobias remains on the cutting edge with unmatched technology-based solutions to maximize profitability, regardless of investment strategy.

As a unique content company, Knobias goes beyond its innovative technology and produces relevant, timely, and most importantly, actionable stock market content daily. Every day Knobias editors and analysts produce profit-enabling content covering every spectrum of the U.S. stock market action. Third-party aggregation, proprietary Knobias content and technology provides a TOTAL investment decision making platform.

On November 17, 2004, Knobias became a public small-cap company by completing a reverse merger with a non-operating shell company. Since its formation in 1999, Knobias has had one mission in mind… “Help expose small-cap investors to the truth surrounding small-cap investments.” Their experience as a small-cap company has accelerated this cause.

Knobias’ remains true to its historical foundation by continuing its mission of improving market transparency and exchanging reliable information between small-cap issuers seeking exposure and small-cap investors looking for new ideas.